"I just remember there being dust everywhere, and I was freaking out, and then it just stopped.

"So after everything stopped and then realized I was alive, and I looked over and I saw my brother and sister — they were both fine," Esther Jang said. "And then I looked over, and my mom and my dad and they were both on the floor because their seats fell down. And then I called their names out and they both like moaned kind of."

The family trip to South Korea, the first time for the children — Esther, 13-year-old Joseph and 11-year-old Sarah — ended in disaster as the tail end of the Boeing 777 clipped a sea wall and the commercial jet ripped apart, skidding across a runway.

The family, seated in the rear of the plane, accounted for each other as they realized what had happened.

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"I was also calling out for my parents and I was, well, I couldn't breathe ... 'cause I got the wind knocked out of me, so I couldn't breathe for a couple of seconds," Joseph Jang said.

Others on board helped them get out of the wrecked jet.

"And then I realized that I was limping (and) ... their exit did not have a slide. So then a flight attendant brought me to another exit, which had a slide, which was on the opposite side of the plane."